THE HANGOVER REPORT – Richard Nelson’s rich and stealth-like HUNGRY introduces us to the Gabriels just in time for the elections

07HUNGRY-facebookJumbo-v2After the success of “The Apple Family Plays”, I’m so happy to report that playwright Richard Nelson has committed to embarking on a new series about another fictitious family – in this case, the Gabriels – to chronicle the national mood during this election year. In Hungry, the first of three plays to be unleashed at the Public this year, Mr. Nelson uses a Chekhovian formula very similar to the one that made his “The Apple Family Plays” such a celebrated feat. We once again find ourselves to be flies on the wall back in Rhinebeck, NY, this time in the Gabriels’ cozy middle class kitchen. The date is March 4, 2016, and the family is still reeling from one of their sibling’s death.

Like Stephen Karam’s outstanding The Humans, which is currently enjoying a Broadway mounting and I suspect was influenced by Mr. Nelson’s works, Hungry is so stealthily conversational that the play may at first seem nothing more than a collection of small chit chat. As directed by Mr. Nelson himself, however, you slowly start noticing moments of pain and desperation (not necessarily in the text; it could come in the form of fleeting looks or awkward pauses) creeping into their increasingly strained conversations. The cumulative portrait drawn gives us an insight into the American psyche, both personal and political. These characters (particularly as portrayed by this cast) and their interactions are so authentic that they could very well be a real family. They can also be taken as archetypes. Therein lies the genius of the script.

As with “The Apple Family Plays”, the Gabriels have been gorgeously cast (two very fine actors, Maryann Plunkett and Jay O. Sanders, once Apples, are now Gabriels). I really can’t single anyone out. Again very much like The Humans and the Apple plays, Hungry is an ensemble play at its heart – individually these are great actors, but taken together as a single tapestry, they acquire a quiet forcefulness that’s intoxicating.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

 

HUNGRY
Off-Broadway, Play
The Public Theater
1 hour, 45 minutes (without an intermission)
Through March 27

Categories: Off-Broadway, Theater

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